“Go ahead and laugh, boys,” said the good-natured fellow, as he placed his small square box on top of a flat rock he had found, and pointed it toward the ledge at the foot of which Blaisdell had discovered his supposed cave entrance. “I know something that you fellows do not, and I am going to get a picture. The light is fine, for it just sifts nicely through the trees, and the sun is quite high enough yet.”
“Yes, but Billy, if you have no lens nor shutter, how are you going to take a photograph?” asked Blaisdell. “That doesn’t look like anything but a square box.”
“That is all it is, but it is a camera just the same. Did you never hear tell of a pinhole camera, my boy?”
“No, I did not. What is it?”
“I have a plate in this box, and it is set at what they call a universal focus. That is, I can take a picture of something not too close, and one at a distance. The box is lined with black paper, and in front there is a very small hole, now covered by a flap of the same stuff. This hole will admit the light fast enough, and yet not too fast, and as my plate is sensitized, I can get a picture even if I have no lens. Did you ever see a ’camera obscura,’ as they call them?”
“Oh, you mean one of those things that take a panoramic view of the beach and everything in sight? People get shown up sometimes when they don’t know it.”
“Yes, that’s the thing. You don’t get a real photograph there, but you see everything shown up on a table, as the thing at the top revolves. Well, I will get a picture with my pinhole camera even if I have no lens. Why, they used to sell these things, maybe they do yet.”
“Why, yes, seems to me I have seen something about them in the advertisements.”
“No doubt,” and Billy, having seen that his out-of-the-way camera was perfectly level, carefully removed the black flap from the tiny hole in the front of the box and said:
“That’s all right. You fellows cannot get in front of it, and so there will be no harm done. It will take some time to get a picture, but I will have it all the same. The light is fine and I can afford to wait.”